Volkswagen Passat

This review feels very distant from the Passat that I drive. There is no mention of the way the cabin interior is prone to loud and continuous squeaks due to the poor quality of the dash materials.

Fun to drive is also not something that your could use to describe the Passat. It is boring, and around town in diesel form is a downright pain to drive owing to it being prone to stall, a bad engine gearbox marriage resulting in far too many gear changes, spots where there is no power. On back roads, take it steady, it is prone to sudden understeer. On the motorway it is OK.

It also doesn't mention the unreliability of the parking brake - it's tendency to fix on when you most need it on a hill - or its tendency to turn itself off when it is left. In realistic driving, fuel economy is actually 8-10mpg less than quoted. The ride in this car is also awful you feel every road dimple, pot hole or more it is crashing and jarring.

If you can get your car to be reliable from for the service duration you might be OK but generally, mine has been in the garage once every couple of months.... clutch, turbo charger, engine problems, steering problems, brake problems. On mine, servicing also seems to occur at 13k miles not the 18-20k that dealers will quote you. And bear in mind that servicing is expensive.

The only good thing I can say about this car really is that it has lots of space. Otherwise, it is the worst car I have ever owned.

By hantsalive on 1 March, 2010, 1:44pm

This review feels very distant from the Passat that I drive. There is no mention of the way the cabin interior is prone to loud and continuous squeaks due to the poor quality of the dash materials.

Fun to drive is also not something that your could use to describe the Passat. It is boring, and around town in diesel form is a downright pain to drive owing to it being prone to stall, a bad engine gearbox marriage resulting in far too many gear changes, spots where there is no power. On back roads, take it steady, it is prone to sudden understeer. On the motorway it is OK.

It also doesn't mention the unreliability of the parking brake - it's tendency to fix on when you most need it on a hill - or its tendency to turn itself off when it is left. In realistic driving, fuel economy is actually 8-10mpg less than quoted. The ride in this car is also awful you feel every road dimple, pot hole or more it is crashing and jarring.

If you can get your car to be reliable from for the service duration you might be OK but generally, mine has been in the garage once every couple of months.... clutch, turbo charger, engine problems, steering problems, brake problems. On mine, servicing also seems to occur at 13k miles not the 18-20k that dealers will quote you. And bear in mind that servicing is expensive.

The only good thing I can say about this car really is that it has lots of space. Otherwise, it is the worst car I have ever owned.

By hantsalive on 1 March, 2010, 3:00pm

Passat - Bad Car

I have to agree with the comment above. This is the most terrible car I have owned.

Plagued with reliability problems, the noisy dash is intolerable on anything over a short drive, the parking brake is simply dangerous and I really don't think VW should be allowed to sell this car. It has the potential to kill a child or an adult.

I have used VAG cars most of my working life but after this it is clear that VW have nothing but contempt for their customers. Having spent over £100k on VAG cars over the last decade, I won't be going near one again.

I had the opportunity to drive a Vectra a while ago and I have to say, it was much nicer to drive.

This car is as ugly as they come. My advice. Look elsewhere. Repairing it costs a fortune. My clutch went as well - £1500 bill!

I think the reason that the clutches fail so often on these cars is because of the problems with the push button handbrake when it seizes. The bad marriage of the stalling van engine in combination with the car also means that you have to compensate hard when pulling away - which means excessive clutch (and tyre) wear as that horrible dollop of torque combined with a chasis that can't put the torque down leaves the car scrabbling for grip.

I agree about the ride as well and in the real world, I only get about 38mpg from it.It is awful. Try a golf then a passat and see the difference. It seems VW don't know how to build cars in this class anymore.

Rubbish. Total rubbish.

By Pauley on 9 April, 2010, 7:36pm

bad car? inclined to agree!!!

I thought that the passat i own is a comfortable ride,(2.0 tdi 140') and other than the noisy dashboard i've yet to encounter the failings of the vehicle as mentioned in reviews above. my particular one does have a lot of extras on it such as sat nav, bigger wheels etc... However this is the worst car i have purchased as it has spent longer in the garage than i have spent driving it, somehow it has eaten 4 turbocharger units, and interestingly enough each one has broken in the exact same way (shaft sheared, linking the compression unit to the turbine unit inside the turbo housing). whats more interesting about the problem i have encountered is; that no garage, tech or 'vw expert' can diagnose the fault, and once a new turbocharger unit is installed on the car it makes a 'whizzing' noise within days (which signifies 'turbo shaft play'), then hours to possibly a couple of days later i find myself in a cloud of smoke at the side of a road waiting for another recovery truck.
this problem could be unique to just my car, and i would like to point out that they were replaced under warrenty, however, considering the servicing costs, the many repair bills mentioned in posts above, i wouldnt recommend...

By christopher1985 on 29 April, 2010, 12:39am

Unreliability personified

This 2.0 TDI estate was our 3rd Passat. After some combined 250,000 miles of (almost) fault free driving was let down big time cuasing me having to use roadside assist for first time in 35 years of driving. Fist required a replacement fuel injector and loom - £750!! Then the big one! Heading up M1 at steady 75mph sudden loss of power, huge clouds of black smoke follwed by crawl on hard shoulder to Tibshelf Services. Day on recovery trucks followed and then horror of horrow, replacement engine needed! This on 3.5 year car, regularly serviced, 70,000 on clock. The engine specialist diagnosed shards of plastic entering engine from recirc. exhaust manifold which destroyed 2 cylinders, head gasket, turbo etc. He had not seen anything like it previously. Now to contact 'helpful' VW Customer Srives to ask for explanation...Car out of warranty, not repaired by VW Dealer etc. (I couldn't remortgage house for latter!). Anyone else had an engine self-destruct in this manner?

By andyL on 15 November, 2010, 8:06pm

Awful Car

I have had nothing but problems with this car, the 1.9 is so sluggish its unreal. The clutch went on mine as well at 70000 miles and in the middle of the motorway of all places. A few weeks before that I had to have the master and slave cylinders replaced but then DM flywheel went. The interior door panels are absolute rubbish, the plastic is bubbling like it has been melted. The car has full VW service history but seems to count for nothing, customer service is really poor. The only positive I can take from this car is that it has a large boot apart from that nothing else I can think of.

By jayman on 1 June, 2011, 12:49pm

MMMM!!!!!!

well after reading the above posts I must say I find them amazing. I have had a 2.0ltr TDi for just over 2 years. The only fault I encountered was a faulty boot bulb. That was fixed before I had time to sit down in the dealers. it has been extremely frugal on fuel and has bags of power. My only complaint would be applicable to all turbos is that the turbo runs out of steam before I want it to. I suppose that having a petrol V6 Rover that would happily rev to 7000rpm it was obvious I would notice a fault there. As I said typical of all turbos.Regarding the squeeks I have noticed in colder weather that the dash area has a squeek when cold but soon goes. I have no problem with the electric handbrake whatsoever. In fact I think it is superb and has caused me no problems at all set on fully auto via the steering wheel menu adjustment buttons. It is very well put together and a very good car. It is comfortable and refined with loads of gadgetry that I like. Road tax on mine is £130 so very reasonable in the Government robbery stakes!

By roverv6 on 1 November, 2011, 2:43pm

Multiple Faults Could Make It Expensive

I've read the above reviews and can agree with a number of points. I bought my 2006 Passat (2.0 TDI 140) when it was 2 years old and had about 30K on it. I've had it since and have only put about 35k on it in this time.

Two days after I picked up the car the handbrake failed but at least it was stuck off. It turned out to be the fault of the button, but it was fixed under warranty. When I was in I checked if the recalls had been carried out, and it turned out that the fuel pump had not been - so it was replaced under warranty.

Over the first few weeks I thought the clutch was vibrating so I got them to check it out and it turns out that the clutch flywheel was causing problems, its a common problem in early models, so they were replacing them when they occurred if the car was under warranty, which it was for me.

Fuel economy isn't good - average is about 43mpg and this is on motorway driving. My previous Audi A4 gave me 50+mpg to its credit. The dashboard is particularly noisy, and mine doesn't get noticeably quieter once the car warms up, and VW were not able to fix it.

Most recently the handbrake caused me problems again - locking off. This time VW decided to change the handbrake control module at a cost of £640, as it was now outside warranty. This fixed the problem for about 4 weeks when it happened again and they decided to replace the handbrake switch, free of charge, leaving me with the feeling of uncertainty about whether the module really ever needed changing in the first place!

The bottom line is that its a reasonable car in terms of looks and driving, but I feel like I don't trust it. And knowing that if it has problems again, it'll probably leave me with a big bill!

By Bill_C on 21 November, 2011, 12:41pm

BIGGEST & MOST EXPENSIVE CAR MISTAKE OF MY LIFE!

I bought my Passat 2nd hand from an approved VW dealer about 4 years ago for £9k, give or take. It's now only 6 years old and has cost me a fortune in money, time and stress. I'm cursing the day I bought the sodding thing.

In the past 12 months, at a cost of over £2,000, I've had
a new catalytic converter
a new steering column
tailgate repair (boot didnt close in the winter's -15 degrees)
parking brake repair and
god knows what else. I've lost count.

Today I'm told that it thinks it wants new cooling fans at a bargain cost of....£600!

As if that wasn't bad enough, I endured horrific customer service last time round (no returned calls, accused of lying and much, much more). Got so angry I wrote personally to Chris Craft, supposed top dog at VW customer service. Surprise surprise no reply.

And something tells me it's about to happen all over again.

My advice? Never, ever, EVER, EVER buy a Passat. Or any other VW, in fact, if bankruptcy isn't your thing.

By ihatemypassat on 2 December, 2011, 3:10pm